Thursday, April 2, 2015

SHOULD I START A RELATIONSHIP WITH A NON-CHRISTIAN?

Last night I was speaking to a Christian Union
meeting at our local university about dating and marriage. One of the
perennial problems that many young people fall into is getting into
relationships with non-Christians. I was exhorting these students to
realise that going out with a non-Christian is not an option for the
believer. Because dating is a stepping stone to marriage, what the Bible
says about whom we may marry applies to whom we may date as well. 1
Corinthians 7.39: A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord. But even if someone refuses to accept that this command applies to pre-marriage relationships, at best it is incredibly foolish and unloving for a Christian to date a non-Christian. Here are a few points to reinforce this…

1. Dating a non-Christian is incredibly short-sighted.
What happens if he doesn’t become a Christian? Even if you can persuade
yourself that it is somehow OK to date an unbeliever, you
can’t kid yourself that’s it’s OK to marry him/her unless you rip 1
Corinthians 7.39 out of the Bible. So at what point will you pull the
plug on the relationship if the boyfriend or girlfriend doesn’t become a
Christian? After a month? After a year? When he proposes but still
hasn’t become a Christian? You’re only storing up hurt for both of you.
It’s an incredibly unloving, unkind thing to. What if he says, ‘OK then,
I’ll become a Christian.’ How do you know he means it? How does he
know he means it? It’s really tantamount to emotional blackmail,
because what you’re saying at the end of the day is, ‘If you don’t
become a Christian, this relationship will have to end.’

2. Many young people fool themselves into thinking they will be a
good witness to the one they’re dating, but if you are truly serious
about seeing that person come to Christ, then going out with them is
probably about the worst thing you can possibly do. For one thing,
you’re teaching them that obeying God’s word carefully and
comprehensively isn’t all that important if it gets in the way of
something you want to do. But inevitably it is going to confuse their
motives—it’s going to be hard for them to separate their interest in the
gospel from their interest in you. In most cases this is just a
pious-sounding excuse Christians use to ease their conscience as they do
what they want to do. God may graciously bring that unbeliever to
himself, but it will be in spite of your presumption rather than because
of it.

3. Almost invariably what happens in practice is that the Christian
is led astray by the relationship. Their zeal and enthusiasm evaporate.
It’s hard enough for our young people to keep themselves sexually pure
while going out with another Christian who is committed to honouring God
with their body before marriage; with a non-Christian this is going to
be much more difficult.

4. Beginning a relationship with a non-Christian betrays a failure to
realise how utterly different a Christian is from a non-Christian. When
two people decide to start a relationship, it’s normally because they
share the same values and worldview. But you can’t get two more
profoundly different people than a believer and an unbeliever (2
Corinthians 6.14-7.1). All the things you have in common are purely
superficial and can’t possibly compensate for the huge gulf between you
spiritually. Think about it like this. Could you go out with someone who
really doesn’t like your family? (This illustration assumes that you
like your family!). They might be very polite about it—it’s not that
they go around cursing your family up and down, they just don’t want
anything to do with them. They don’t ever want to meet them or spend
time with them. They don’t really like you seeing them. They don’t want
you to talk about them (‘Look, if you want to like your family that’s OK
for you, but don’t try to shove them down my throat!’). Could you ever
realistically consider marrying someone who thought like that? Why would
you even start a relationship with someone who thought like that—who
despises these people who are so precious and important to you? Would
all the other things you have in common with this person outweigh the
fact that they hate your family? Well, if you wouldn’t consider dating
someone who didn’t like your earthly family, how much less
should you think of dating someone who despises your heavenly Father who
matters far more to you even than your family here?